Freehold

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Sergeant Kendra Pacelli is innocent, but that doesn't matter to the repressive government pursuing her. Mistakes might be made, but they are never acknowledged, especially when billions of embezzled dollars earned from illegal weapons sales are at stake. But where does one run when all Earth and most settled planets are under the aegis of one government? Answer: The Freehold of Grainne. There, one may seek asylum and build a new life in a society that doesn't track its residents every move, which is just what Pacelli has done. But now things are about to go royally to hell. Because Earth's government has found out where she is, and they want her back. Or dead.

To those that think Michael Z. Williamson was writing a book about a libertarian utopia your f'n idiots. It's a book about contrasting two polo cal systems pro's and con's. Was this comment helpful?
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2. Aron on 11/25/2014, said:

Freehold is really a fantasy book with some science fiction elements. I don't mean fantasy as in "here are elves and wizards," but as in "these are the things that Michael Z. Williamson likes to imagine to be true about the world."
The idea of the United Nations being a tyrannical global powerhouse? Pure paranoid fantasy. We're talking about an entity whose main power is sending strongly worded letters.
The idea that guns are so much of an equalizer that their presence is all it takes to make everyone equal? Pure fantasy. There would still be advantages to be had in any confrontation: eyesight, reflexes, coordination, physical endurance, and of course, numbers.
But Williamson's Grainne (it's prounced Gran-ya, by the way, Mike. According to his FAQ, he picked a Gaelic name he doesn't know how to pronounce. That's fine, I don't speak Gaelic myself, but this book was published in 2004. I'm pretty sure the internet was already a thing, so not figuring out how to pronounce his own setting is just lazy. Then, laziness abounds in this writing.) somehow magically never devolves into factionalism. While we're told that people have formed things like gangs for their mutual protection, it seems like in Williamson's fantasy world, "bullies" only come as lone wolves ill-equipped to deal with an armed flock. The antisocial impulse is still present enough that people need to gang up to patrol their neighborhoods, but not present enough that people gang up to invade other neighbhorhoods.
Williamson could have established that Freehold society works so well that there are no bullies and nothing to protect a neighbhorhood against, which would still have been fantastic, but a little bit less obvious that he'd skewed reality to prove a point. It's no FUN imagining Free Market Guntopia if there's no point to everyone having guns!
The writing is terrible, the set-up is juvenlie, the wish fulfillment is palpable, but it's later events that really "elevate" this to the same level of other failed-philosophy-treatise-as-fiction masterpieces like Ayn Rand's canon or the Left Behind series. When the all-powerful United Nations (seriously, can't type that without laughing) exports a bunch of criminals and political protesters to the Freehold as part of a nonsensical political intrigue in-story (and out-of-story so that the Guntopianists can have some target practice), it's like the email forwards from your crazy rightwing uncle had a baby with NRA bumper stickers and that baby grew up to write a novel.
One of the most disgusting elements of this story is that the sex worker/love interest is captured and subjected to torture and gang-rape because even a book that has as premise that in a perfect world there would be no problem with sex work feels the need to punish the sex worker. Therapy allows her recover enough to continue being part of a threesome with the other main characters, including the hotshot flyboy who is the author's avatar in all this, but not enough to ever fully return to sex work.
I guess this is because it's hot for the author to imagine himself in a threesome that includes a glamorous escort but not hot to imagine she's actually having sex with other people.
If you want to read derivative formulaic space opera spattered with the stunted fragile maculinity of the author, well, this still isn't the book for you. If you want all of that but you demand the book be the kind of juvenile wish-fulfillment that your one "friend" who carries around weapons dreaming about the UN takeover or the zombie apocalypse or anything else they think will turn their life into an action movie so they can show everyone how badass they are has, then this is the book for you. Except even if your taste is that terrible, you still deserve something better than this.Was this comment helpful?
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3. Eugene on 8/14/2014, said:

Really great space operaWas this comment helpful?
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4. Jon on 5/18/2014, said:

People! You KNOW what you're getting from the description. You know that the Christian [and other'] concept of 'do unto others ....' works in small groups, if at all, and humans seem to have a dominant greed gene, but it's nice to read about it even while you know it can't be true, not until people change. And if Heinlein wrote about it, as have others, that doesn't keep others from writing a good story on the same theme.
A lot of people have a problem with freedom or libertarianism because it means you have to accept things you don't like. If you can't accept
I. Don't bother other people.
a. Don't be bothered by things that don't affect you.
then you need to find a group with the same prejudices you have. It sounds good until you have to live with it.Was this comment helpful?
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5. Neale on 8/19/2013, said:

Contrary to the comments of some, saying that since Heinlein said it in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress there is no reason to say it again, there is a very definite reason to. And Freehold is a stellar example of why. It examines the entire spectrum of big government vs libertarianism (and it ain't libertarianism taking place in the Freehold!) It is well written, peopled with excellent characters, and overall, one of the finest novels I have read recently.Was this comment helpful?
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6. Mike on 4/2/2013, said:

Very good indeed, most enjoyable.Was this comment helpful?
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7. Kevin on 4/26/2012, said:

I regret to say that I had to put this book down after the first half-dozen or so chapters; this rarely happens to me, and I'm giving a second star for the benefit of the doubt.
There is a long science fiction tradition of plucky libertarian space colonies being resented by grumpy, government-encrusted welfare-state homeworlds, with an equally long tradition of fish-out-of-water characters moving from one to the other. (Your libertarian paradise has no nudity taboo, and its tiny, wise, efficient government thinks that prostitution is perfectly acceptable employment? Shocking!) Heinlein offered us this TANSTAAFL vision three or more decades ago. It's not necessary to laboriously explain and contrast the two political systems, or to lecture the reader (through various dreadfully earnest author-surrogate character voices) about the evils of Big Government and the superiority of the Free Market. This author is talking down to his readers, wasting our time *telling* us what a utopian world he has built instead of *showing* us. Was this comment helpful?
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8. Scott on 2/12/2012, said:

Folks! It's the attitude of the society that allows this kind of "Utopia" to possibly exist outside of a work of fiction. In our society a corporations officers are required to make decisions based upon greatest profit, The bottom line is the ONLY criterion, not service, not fairness, not even the obvious one that if you take care of your (people, customers, clientele) own they will take care of you. Hence the need for a monopoly, wherein you have to pay their price because they ain't no one else. (they got rid of or bought 'em out)
Small populations can help create the feeling like family towards ones neighbor.
A frontier society where you naturally pitch in to aid your neighbor so that your neighbor will be around to aid you when YOU need it. I didn't like some of the things my older brothers did to me as a child, but if my brother needs help I will help, sometimes without being asked.
Too bad that the rough translation of 'Utopia" from the Greek is: No Place.Was this comment helpful?
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9. ricardo on 1/25/2012, said:

excelent book,utopian,?no not realy,the UN?useless like any other political groupWas this comment helpful?
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10. Alexander on 1/12/2012, said:

Author never explains one thing: How did the human nature change that much to produce that libertarian utopia? There's a reason my country (USSR) failed with Socialism – the policies and such were made out for some different kind of people. That's why Christianity fails – not that much people are ready to live like Jesus did. That's basically the reason all utopias fail – the human race is wrong.
Oh, and... too much sex (seems to me like that's a trend novadays in this kind of book). And too much UN-bashing. But good for a quick read on the train.Was this comment helpful?
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